An MP wants supervised drug-taking rooms opened in Bristol after figures revealed addicts are costing the city's hospitals more than £1million a year.

Thangam Debbonaire MP gave a speech in Parliament calling for “drug consumption rooms” – places run by clinicians which have clean needles and facilities available – to be made legal because of the heavy burden drug-taking is placing on Bristol’s health and social scene.

And to those who disagree, she says "we already have a drug consumption room in Bristol: it is called Bristol".

The Bristol West MP told ministers drug-related admissions to Bristol Royal Infirmary (BRI) cost the NHS £1.3million a year, with the patients needing care for a total of 2,758 days.

Out of those days, more than a 1,000 were related to injection related-illnesses – 36 per cent of all drug-related care at the hospital. The care for those 1,000 days cost taxpayers £400,000 and was for only 71 people, Ms Debbonaire revealed.

What is a drug consumption room?

The rooms provide a space for drug-users to take Class A drugs under the supervision of medical professionals.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has said the rooms – which have been dubbed "shooting galleries" or "needle rooms" – could potentially reduce the number of drug-related deaths.

In the room, users can take drugs without fear of arrest.

Medical staff are also on hand to prevent overdoses, and they can give advice about entering recovery programmes.

Users are also provided with clean needles, which prevents infections and the need for future hospital treatment.

Those in favour of drug consumption facilities argue they reduce risk of disease transmission by preventing unhygienic injecting, stop drug-related overdose deaths and connect high-risk drug users with addiction treatment and other health and social services.

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Ten countries in Europe and elsewhere have successfully brought them in, including Switzerland, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Canada and Australia.

In Thursday’s Westminster Hall debate, Ms Debbonaire said creating drug consumption rooms, where users could take substances without fear of arrest, would lessen the danger for both the user and the public.

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“I understand why people have an instinctive reaction that drug consumption rooms must be harmful, because they appear to facilitate the use of drugs,” said the Labour Party whip.

“To MPs who have doubts, however, I say that we already have a drug consumption room in Bristol: it is called Bristol.

“It is called the square outside my office, the doorstep into my office and the blocks of council flats at the side of my office. It is called virtually every part of the city centre.

Bristol West MP Thangam Debbonaire (Image: Jon Kent)

“The harms caused by that existing drug consumption: the resulting drug litter, and the visible harm to drug addicts and to bystanders – people who have no interest in taking drugs but want their children to be able to play in the local playground – are many and varied.”

The consumption rooms would also take the burden off the NHS by reducing the number of drug-related admissions to hospital, Ms Debbonaire argued, as drug users would have their consumption more closely monitored. She told MPs that “nobody has ever died in a drug consumption room that was officially sanctioned and clinically run”.

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“I urge all MPs to consider that if we want to give our health service more money, if we want to make our streets safer, and if we want to save the lives of people who have drug addictions, as I do, we need to invest in drug consumption rooms,” she added.

“However unpleasant it is to have to step over a very aggressive and slightly frightening – sometimes very frightening – drug addict on my office steps, I do not want them to die.

“I want their lives to be saved and I want the people who live in the blocks of flats near my office to be able to send their children out to play.”

A heroin addict smokes heroin at consumption room (Image: Getty)

Victoria Atkins, a Home Office minister, said she had yet to be convinced that drug consumption rooms were the best way to tackle addiction, arguing that “their purpose is not recovery”.

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The junior Tory minister said: “Their purpose is to provide a place where illicit drugs that have been bought in the local area are then consumed in a place funded either by the taxpayer or charities.

“Recovery is an optional part of that usage; it is not the sole purpose of it. That is very different from our drug strategy.”

Ms Debbonaire caused a stir after appearing in BBC3 documentary Drugsland, a programme examining the impact of the illegal drugs trade on the city. The MP, whose patch covers much of the city centre, called on the Government to look into regulating the sale of even some hard Class A drugs after hearing from drug and health experts.